Model Scaling and Visibilty

[Roger Ramjet]

I voted extremly important

 

Extremly important.

 

There`s not only problem of noticing an aircraft or a dot from a certain range.

You should also be able to tell where`s the nose and where`s the tail of it - so to determine the aspect ratio! When you only see the dot/label from 4 klicks instead of an airplane - you still don`t know where is it flying - left, right, or maybe up or down?

 

Before we have 80 000 x 80 000 pixels monitors - which will match the humans eye resolution it will be a problem.

 

The topic was discussed ad nauseam already.There was so many topics on that i don`t even know if there was any answer from the devs - if anyone saw any - please point me to it.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Roger Ramjet
typos

[DieHard]

You're not. I've been saying this since the P-51 came out. I bought the BF-109 only to go play Aces High because I can actually find aircraft there. Graphics don't mean anything if you can't employ the aircraft in the first place

 

I like Aces High, too.

:thumbup:

[gavagai]

Voted: extremely important!

 

Thanks for the poll.

[SharpeXB]

Both BoS and RoF use a modest scaling system and it works wonderfully. Honestly, it works so fluidly that if you didn't know it was there you likely wouldn't even notice. And yet planes in RoF/BoS are clearly visible from 4-5km typically at default FoV.

I asked this question on the BoS forum. Jason replied that BoS does not use scaling for easier spotting. I agree that BoS does have excellent object detail rendering/spotting but it's not due to scaling.

[King_Hrothgar]

Hmm, I could have sworn they said they were using a scaling system. Either way, they did something right.

[SharpeXB]

I don't see how scaling could be implemented without it looking extremely odd.

If it were very subtle it would be unnoticeable and then there'd be no point.

If it was enough to enhance visibility of distant objects then if you ever looked at a lower flying plane or ground object it would appear larger than surrounding trees buildings etc that are not scaled.

Doesn't seem like a good solution. If it was used in past flight sims it must have been in the era of rudimentary graphics where such oddities were easier to ignore. The realism of today's products are out of character with such features.

[Screamadelica]

Voted 'Extremely Important'

Absolutely vital for the success of any WW2 era flight sim.

Plus my ageing eyesight needs all the help it can get!

[skendzie]

I just don't understand how I can spot a tiny little Zero in IL-2 1946 at 8km and I can't see anything in DCS at 2km away (rough approximation!). What is DCS doing wrong that makes things so hard to spot? I mean, in a ten year old game I can spot at good distance, be able to tell plane shape and direction. In DCS I'm lucky to see a pixel!

[mytai01]

I'm not even sure what you mean by, "scaling." What are you taking about? As an air traffic controller in a tower I deal with looking for real aircraft all day long. Aircraft are much smaller than you might think. I have a radar at work that I can tell where they are and I've noted how small they look at different distances. Even big jets can be hard to spot at just 10 miles. A small fighter sized aircraft can be hard to spot even five miles away depending on the sun, the sky conditions and the angle at which you are looking at it. Another thing I've noticed about the game is the zoom features affect on the appearance of size of objects. I was sitting in the cockpit of a MiG-21 looking at an IL-76 sitting right next to me. zoomed out it looks smallish and distant, but change the zoom level and the aircraft seems much bigger and closer. I think a big part of the problem is with balancing the field of view with the zoom level in the game to most be like real life vision. Until a system like Oculus Rift comes out that can cover the entire field of vision we will have to deal with this balancing act.

Edited March 25, 2015 by mytai01

[AussieFX]

Extremely important.

I use a 1200 line monitor which makes it worse, I have no idea how people get on with those nice Dell 30 inchers.

 

However I have a sneaky suspicion that ED are working on this.

The "What resolution are you using" thread gives me the idea.

[Bourrinopathe]

I voted "extremely important" even if I'm convinced the "scaling" is only a factor of the visibility issue in the sim.

 

I live on an island where I can spot small aircrafts, helos, and long-haul aircrafts from afar regularly.

The light reflection/glare on the fuselage, wings, glass/canopy and such make them noticeable at long distances and we don't have that with the current engine.

I really hope EDGE will add that kind of "shininess/glare/reflection" even if it's simulated with a trompe-l’œil (additional flare in the distance, bright spot based on the sun/moon position, etc.).

 

(27" 1920x1080 monitor, 60 cm/24 inches from my eyes)

 

Also, the anti-aliasing may be an issue by smoothing the few pixels in the background.

[WildBillKelsoe]

That's funny , becouse i find it dumb we can't see stuff that would be clearly visible in real life.

 

 

you are right but remember this community comprises not only eagle eye'd people but also old people so scaling should cater for all. I'm not old but my eyesight is terrible (myopic). that speck I see on a monitor could be a little fly, some tobacco from smoking, pure dust speck, or just a marker and it confuses me.

 

 

I'm waiting for oculus consumer and really thinking about LASIK but after seeing the procedure on youtube, my guts cringe when I think this would happen to me. Maybe oculus would sort this thing but an option to scale distant objects (like smart scaling) would still be nice.

[Wolf Rider]

Extremly important.

 

There`s not only problem of noticing an aircraft or a dot from a certain range.

You should also be able to tell where`s the nose and where`s the tail of it - so to determine the aspect ratio! When you only see the dot/label from 4 klicks instead of an airplane - you still don`t know where is it flying - left, right, or maybe up or down?

 

~

 

 

 

the point of "camouflage", in the real world, was to confuse that very thing

[McBlemmen]

you are right but remember this community comprises not only eagle eye'd people but also old people so scaling should cater for all. I'm not old but my eyesight is terrible (myopic). that speck I see on a monitor could be a little fly, some tobacco from smoking, pure dust speck, or just a marker and it confuses me.

 

 

I'm waiting for oculus consumer and really thinking about LASIK but after seeing the procedure on youtube, my guts cringe when I think this would happen to me. Maybe oculus would sort this thing but an option to scale distant objects (like smart scaling) would still be nice.

 

Yes i know , that was my point. I'm all for scaling.

 

We (all of us) should be able to see stuff a real fighter pilot would be able to see , even if our eyesight or resolution isnt great. This is a simulator after all , it should simulate the visibility aspect of the whole experience aswell.

[McBlemmen]

Extremely important.

I use a 1200 line monitor which makes it worse, I have no idea how people get on with those nice Dell 30 inchers.

 

 

I'm sorry for my ignorance but do you mean a 1920x1200 monitor? I also use one of those , why does it make it worse?

[21stCenturyPilot]

I don't have any problems.

 

I use a 27" 1080p screen and zoom the HUD so it fills the screen for guns, bombs and rockets.

 

You can use F5 view to spot aircraft within 10km, or padlock view, or zoom. Ground units can be hard to spot, but they can be hard to spot in real life also.

[SharpeXB]

There's no way to implement scaling without it making the game look extremely odd

It's probably a legacy feature from back when flight sims looked like this and were played on small 4:3 screens.

 

With the level of graphics back then you didn't have to worry about objects being out of scale with surrounding trees because there weren't any. Today's product is supposed to look very realistic and that's not compatable with ground objects drawn larger than roads they're on.

[xaoslaad]

I'm not even sure what you mean by, "scaling." What are you taking about? As an air traffic controller in a tower I deal with looking for real aircraft all day long. Aircraft are much smaller than you might think. I have a radar at work that I can tell where they are and I've noted how small they look at different distances. Even big jets can be hard to spot at just 10 miles. A small fighter sized aircraft can be hard to spot even five miles away depending on the sun, the sky conditions and the angle at which you are looking at it. Another thing I've noticed about the game is the zoom features affect on the appearance of size of objects. I was sitting in the cockpit of a MiG-21 looking at an IL-76 sitting right next to me. zoomed out it looks smallish and distant, but change the zoom level and the aircraft seems much bigger and closer. I think a big part of the problem is with balancing the field of view with the zoom level in the game to most be like real life vision. Until a system like Oculus Rift comes out that can cover the entire field of vision we will have to deal with this balancing act.

 

Hard to spot at 10 miles?

 

10nm with label at normal zoom

 

10nm without label at normal zoom. Can you see anything? I can't..

 

10nm without label at full zoom. You can see something...

[KaspeR32]

Hard to spot at 10 miles?

 

 

This is at an amazing resolution as well.

 

I absolutely think something needs to be done, although it is hard in real life in some situations as the Air Traffic Controller mentioned, people play this online, for fun, and with friends. It's a game at heart, it entertains us. ED makes a Game Flight mode for almost every aircraft they release, so please don't say it's unrealistic therefore it shouldn't be considered.

 

I have mentioned this before, but when I tried to play DCS with my brother, who is not familiar with sims, we spent 90% of the time just looking for each other in the sky. Even the aircraft lights didn't help. So asking for something in between labels and invisible isn't uncalled for.

[SharpeXB]

How do you imagine scaling would be implemented for ground objects on this picture? Would they be drawn larger than the surrounding buildings? Do those get scaled up too? This scaling solution makes no sense today in a game with realistic graphics. It's an old arcade game solution. It won't work today.

[KaspeR32]

How do you imagine scaling would be implemented for ground objects on this picture? Would they be drawn larger than the surrounding buildings? Do those get scaled up too? This scaling solution makes no sense today in a game with realistic graphics. It's an old arcade game solution. It won't work today.

 

If I was thinking in such limited way about the situation I would probably agree with you. :music_whistling:

 

Why bring it to such extremes? What if the scaling is done on a more minimal scale? A few pixels here, a few pixels there. Or something done with reflections of light on a shiny metal surface (think battlefield 3+ and sniper scopes). Anything to help make up for the lack of detail we see on a monitor, with limited FOV and "zoom".

 

There could very well be a solution to this issue, but simply dismissing it because of one very extreme case isn't helping anything.

[xaoslaad]

We have TGP's, Shkval's, and such to help search for ground targets. And since they're slow or static in comparison to ourselves flying around it's easier to take our time to look for them.

 

And if they get better resolution terrain it will be easier to use white hot and black hot modes to see things, particularly in the A-10C, since now big blobs of pixelated ground can be hard to discern from actual targets. And if they give trees substance so people stop stuffing SAMS in forests another common problem with spotting will fix itself in a realistic way. The only way you're going to get a SAM in a forest is if there is a clearing big enough for it to operate in. And give that it should be possible to spot it, whereas now they can be buried under 3 or 4 trees and virtually impossible to see.

 

Dust from moving targets and smoke from dead targets can queue in other players once one has found the target area as well.

 

With planes in the sky, you can't hope to scan the sky at full zoom looking for fuzzy jets at 10 miles out that look like smudges on your monitor and hope to live.

 

Two different problems by far.

[SharpeXB]

If I was thinking in such limited way about the situation I would probably agree with you. :music_whistling:

 

Why bring it to such extremes? What if the scaling is done on a more minimal scale? A few pixels here, a few pixels there. Or something done with reflections of light on a shiny metal surface (think battlefield 3+ and sniper scopes). Anything to help make up for the lack of detail we see on a monitor, with limited FOV and "zoom".

 

There could very well be a solution to this issue, but simply dismissing it because of one very extreme case isn't helping anything.

Any solution has to work under all conditions or it's not any good.

There are other ways to improve spotting but scaling isn't workable. As mentioned before BoS does a very good job and does not rely on scaling. Better contrast, detail, shading, reflections, antialiasing and resolution all can help.

[NineLine]

Hard to spot at 10 miles?

 

10nm with label at normal zoom

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10nm without label at full zoom. You can see something...

[/img]

 

 

What aircraft did you set up at 10nm for this test? What direction was it flying for this test in comparison to you? If it was a fighter, do you believe you could easily if at all pick up visuals on a fighter size aircraft from that far out without the assist of radar or some such thing?

 

 

I am all for improving things, but I want them to improve to a realistic nature, not some super human spotting abilities... for that, just leave the tags on.

[xaoslaad]

What aircraft did you set up at 10nm for this test? What direction was it flying for this test in comparison to you? If it was a fighter, do you believe you could easily if at all pick up visuals on a fighter size aircraft from that far out without the assist of radar or some such thing?

 

I am all for improving things, but I want them to improve to a realistic nature, not some super human spotting abilities... for that, just leave the tags on.

 

An-26 flying at me. How about if you don't have radar. What if I make it a P-51D, Bf.109 K-4, F-86F, or MiG-15Bis? There is no radar (yes the F-86F technically..). I just chose the F-15C for a quick look; this thread is largely concerned with visual spotting in planes without radar, though it's a problem even for modern jets as people have mentioned, looking to join on their wingman, etc.

 

Call the solution whatever you want, being hard to spot at 10 miles and being impossible to spot outside of panning around at full zoom (which is beyond ridiculous, let alone hard - my cat leaves smudges more distinct than that on my monitor with her nose) are two different things. Scaling, shading, glinting, some other effects - something could be done to drastically improve the situation and bring it closer to realistic difficulty. As it stands I don't think it's very realistic or particularly fun. At the same time labels are too easy.